On Tisha B’av we are supposed to grieve and mourn the destruction of the Bais Hamikdash. Grief and mourning is the pain we experience over the loss of someone or something we cherished dearly. None of us ever saw or experienced the Bais Hamikdash, how is it possible for us to mourn the loss of something that we never had?
The גמרא in :סנהדרין צו says something cryptic. At the time of the חורבן, a Bas Kol went out and said עמא קטילא קטלת היכלא קליא קלית “A killed nation you have killed, a destroyed Bais Mikdash you have destroyed”, implying that on some level, both כלל ישראל and the Bais Hamikdash were destroyed prior to their physical destruction.
This gemara is difficult to understand. What does it mean that the Bais Hamikdash was already destroyed ? Were there not Korbanos being brought, the Menorah being lit? Were there not millions of Jews being Oleh regel?
In his Sefer “בו ישיבה” Rabbi Aharon Lopiansky explains what the ultimate focus of לימוד התורה and for that matter all of our עבודת השם is about. It’s all about our “Self”. Human beings have many selves. We have the self that has desires, the self that gets angry, the self that seeks approval from others and so on. Which self is the real you? Your truest self is the self that takes the most work to connect to: the נשמה. The נשמה is a חלק אלוקה ממעל, literally, a part of Hashem. The purpose of תורה ומצוות is to actualize the true self, the נשמה. By actualizing our true self we are achieving the ultimate goal of עשה רצונו רצונך because at our essence, our will is His will because who we are is a part of Him. The more we cultivate our true self, the more we relate to and identify with the Godly part of ourselves and as a result, our lives are lived from the part of us that wants what Hashem wants. At that level, they are one and the same. (This point is from Rabbi Lopiansky, the following conclusions are not)
By its very nature, the true self of every person is unique and requires an individualized path to nurture and grow. It’s impossible to have one path that can bring out the self of completely different people. When we define our רוחניות by anything external to ourselves, even תורה ומצוות, we are disconnecting from true רוחניות. By believing there is only “one way” what we are doing is disconnecting from the goal of bringing out the self because no one way can be for so many different selves. If instead, we focus on developing our unique “self”, our perspective changes. I have many clients that a significant part of their suffering is a result of externalizing their רוחניות . Many believe that רוחניות means complete immersion in לימוד התורה exclusively. While that may be the path to the self for some people, it definitely is not for many others. The belief that רוחניות has an external barometer can lead to anxiety, self doubt and other mental health issues. It’s impossible to be connected to רוחניות if it has nothing to do with who you are as an individual. Growth in רוחניות must begin with knowing yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and then cultivating your self through the means of תורה ומצוות. Understanding that your רוחניות is about developing your own individual self will by necessity shift the path to get there. For some, it will be full time לימוד התורה. For many others, attempting that will disconnect them from themselves and by definition, from רוחניות. They will need a path that cultivates their innate, unique “self”. That path will have a focus on the unique כוחות of that individual’s self. For everyone, there needs to be a clarity that the רוחניות in your actions is not external to who you are, it’s in what those actions cultivate in you as an individual.
The pshat in the גמרא that says the Bais Hamikdash was already destroyed prior to its destruction may be as follows: Before the Churban, כלל ישראל disconnected from the essence of רוחניות, themselves. The Bais Hamikdash and all of the עבודה was not intended as a goal unto itself, rather it served to express the connection of the “Self” of כלל ישראל and each individual to הקבה. Once that was lost, then עמא קטילא קטלת, “a killed nation you killed” . Automatically then, היכלא קליא קלית, “a destroyed Bais Hamikdash you destroyed” because the Bais Hamikdash was never the source of רוחניות, we are the source. Once that inner connection to the “self” was broken, the Bais Hamikdash was already destroyed because it was no longer connected to the “selves” that it was intended to.
How can we mourn the Bais Hamikdash if we never saw it? When we mourn the Bais Hamikdash what we are really mourning is the loss of ourselves, our true selves. As the גמרא in סנהדרין states, the Bais Hamikdash was lost before it was physically destroyed. It was lost when we lost our connection to our true self. When we disconnect from ourselves, we also lose our sense of connection to Hashem, because our true self is a part of him. That we can mourn.
Chaim Moshe Steinmetz LISW
Chaimmoshesteinmetz.com
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